The Great Smoking Crisis

There is a very unfunny parrellel between the way this Republican congress treats President Obama, to the way Paul and Judy deal with my trying to quit smoking.  They want me to fail and will seemingly move heaven and earth to insure that that happens- - and should there be any sucesses- - these will be denied and dismissed as if their lives depended on their doing so.  We can talk about track records if you want to.  I had almost no contact with Paul and Judy for seventeen years from the second half of 1981 through to December of 1998.  You can track the frequency of "crises" in my life to the presence of Paul and Judy in my life.  When these two aren't around- - crises don't occur.  But there is also the "thoroughness" argument.  In President Obama's case it pertains to the President's "effectiveness" in prosecuting this War with ISIS.  Keep in mind John Boehner met with his top aids and said NO ACTION or authorization for the conflict would take place till the next congress is seated next year.  This is a Fact.  People in the tea party or Paul and Judy disregard FACTS almost alltogether.   Sean Hannity gave this yammering lecture about how President Obama needs to go whole hog and declare World War III or something because “These weak and half way measures will never get the job done and they’ll come back again and again”.  Then Sean said “Actually I’ve got a bad preminission about this war.  I hope I’m wrong but I’m afraid before it’s done it’s going to get really bad”.   This sounds like some kind of dark malicious prophecy.  Both Paul and Judy and the Republican Congress have a very "dark" outlook on life.  So this blog contains snippets cobbled together on the subject of my quitting smoking.  I'm not a very good spokesman for "selling' others on my viewpoint, regardless of the facts.  Another armed with the same FACTS I am in posession of would do a much better job of defending me.  Paul is a people person.  He's good - - not at counseling- - where I would rate him a charitable D minus.  Where is true calling really lies is in being a salesperson- - perferably pitching a product that's a total dud and a piece of crap.  Paul has this unique tallent for "blowing people off' and disregarding their feelings and needs- - and he'd be the perfect spokesman for the complaint depart for instance where after talking with him- - YES you'll NEVER shop at that store again, but as far as he's concerned- - HE won the victory with his impenetrable WALL OF BULLSHIT.   Here are some snippits.

 I called Judy and the conversation with her went better than expected.  I apologized for my attitude of last Friday.  This is the one where I was completely in the right about no promise being made – in fact quite the opposite took place in the conversation.  Paul reminded me of the impossible odds of quitting- - way after he had plopped down the money done without condition.  But I made the mistake of bringing up the topic with Paul and that conversation was doomed from the start.  No matter what I said about personal effort of brain chemistry or panic attacks - - or actual progress made- - the whole thing boiled down to “[Marcus] can’t prove he’s totally off cigarettes.  Therefore [Marcus] has decided that he doesn’t want to quit smoking.”   And of course did you know I was a major con artist?  Paul gave me a lecture about “Moral Integrety” with Federico and the reason why I asked for that two dollars.  That’s like borrowing money to buy a refrigerator but then your neighbor is moving and don’t need their refrigerator so you take it - - and you use the money to go out and buy a grand piano instead.  All I can say is before the Judgement Seat of Christ that Paul better be sure that none of his sins total to be over two dollars or he’s in major trouble.  It almost reminds of that “Bengazi” echo chamber- - the mantra that Congress keeps repeating endlessly.  And I did not even raise issues such as “the quality of life” or how “mentally functional I am”, and I said very little about pharmacological brain chemistry- - and how perhaps certain personality traits would be exaserbated by my suddenly going off nicotine.  It’s like showing a TV monitor a purple banana and saying “Make this banana look yellow” and eventually they may say “OK it looks vaguely yellow now- - but everything else looks like hell”.

I thought of writing him a letter explaining the multitude of reasons, many of which I just thought of, working against my quitting smoking.  But for one thing is - - I have NEVER been normal.  I was always nervous with manorisms, I was mocked for by one brother in particular as you know.  Also “I’m a mental patient” and who is to say what brain chemistry plays into my needing cigarettes to function?  Let me add here that I was told "Just take your pills and everything will be fine."  Now I'm told 'Just quit smoking and everything will be fine".  I would also cite here an incident on the Dr Phil show- - where this young adult was having the SAME relationational problems with his mother one month AFTER he got off drugs as he had before.  It’s no secret that Dad had an addiction problem - - but he was never subjected to continuous grilling and “full court press” I was.  Besides this most of the conversations Paul had with Dad were while Dad was drunk.  After at least ten years of alcoholism from December 1967 to Thanksgiving of 1977 - - Dad for years after (at least) was taking valium in addition to any anti spasmodic or other stomach drugs, plus the antidepressant he was on.  To compare me to him is to compare two unequals- - but in Paul’s mind I tend to come off the worse anyhow.   But to even send a letter would presuppose it’s possible to have a rational conversation with either Paul or Judy.

So when Judy says "If you smoke so much as one cigarette that cancles out all your smoking efforts.  One factor by way of Pavlovian conditioning is that- - every time I fail I reinforce the fact that "You better not go without nicotine".   But it's not even abstractly to say the "Right" thing to Judy and I'll illustrate.  One time two years ago - - Judy goes on and on about why am I on SSI and able bodied and stuff, so I mentioned "Maybe I could get a job here or a job there", to which Judy responds "I wouldn't hire you because you're financially irresponsible".   It was the same day Judy lit into President Obama saying 'He suffers from the character disorder of blaming President Bush for his own failures to get the economy to get the economy going".   According to Judy everybody else suffers from "some character flaw".   In this phone call she returned to this "[Marcus] is a crook" mantra her in a way.  What she said was "You think you can just get upgraded service and not have to pay for it".   This is a revision of I short change the phone company on a bill and she goes "[Marcus] is stealing from the phone company".   She also made an allusion to "bailing me out that other time" when one time I was LIED TO over the phone who tried to say I was saving money by signing me up for a new charge.  I PAID that charge whenever it occurred SHE DIDN"T.  All SHE did was to lock me out of my own account using this incident about three years ago as an excuse.  Oh- - Judy is a control freak.  You knew that.  This is why the bumper "Save the Males" comes off as so idiotic coming from her.  Of course- - the 47% are lazy bums too- - there's that line.  And the Occupy Wall Street group- - they're all socialists who want to "steal" from the rich.  Judy uses the imagry lf "debt" or "taking from others" quite a bit.  

Relations with Paul and Judy have hit another rocky patch.  Last Tuesday at dinner I received my bank statement that showed I was overdrawn - - which surprised me.   Well I was able to get Paul to take me to the bank.  I had a choice.  I could put two dollars in - - and be safe for five days- - where I'd somehow have to come up with more.  I had borrowed two dollars from Federico.  When we were at the bank Paul just plopped down a twenty dollar bill - - to give me a cash cushion.   I think somehow I brought up my tobacco addiction - - .   Clearly I have been really stressed all month.  Now there is the impending dental work which could go on for weeks.  There's the fact that a while back there was a crackdown on smoking here and they restricted our area for smoking- - with threats they might bar it alltogether.  There was the famous lamp crisis that seemingly went on forever.  There is the "no over the counter medications in your room" edict a month ago.  I had just learned from Dr Saran that he would not all me to get those methylated B vitamines Judy was talking up so much.  I was counting on them for some merical cure to my stress or whatever.  I mentioned how little I had smoked lately, and Paul reminded me that - - no cesation of smoking really "counts" if it's forced or some out of external compultion.  Paul went on to talk about how I may have an addiction gene that Dad also probably had.  He also went on to say that if I ever think of- - - having to FORCE myself to quit smoking- - - like a diet- - the person longs for the period when his DIET is done.   I once asked Mom (you remember Christmas 2009) when would be the POINT at which she'd be satisfied I'd successfully quit smoking.  And She basically said that point would never come.  Clearly I can't even make a PROMISE to not smoke- - - - and no promises were sought or given today.  BUT THIS DID NOT STOP THEM FROM REPEATEDLY SAYING I HAD BROKEN A PROMISE What I didn't mention were some factors KEEPING me a smoker besides this.  For instance nicotine may be helping me function.  My brain chemistry was never normal to begin with.  Also I see people like Bill S and John M going endless periods without cigarettes- - but somehow they never decided "OK I"m over cigarettes now". 

AG Eric Holder Steps Down - Thanks for Nothing

 Right now Bill Press is discussing President Obama and the retirement of Attorney General Eric Holder and I’m happy to see that Bill Press agrees with me because Holder was an ineffective cabinet post among so many ineffective cabinet posts.  The only areas where Holder was aggressive is hasseling Arizona law enforcement- - and going after reporters and whistle blowers.  He not only gave the Bush and Chaney war crimes a pass- - and all CIA people suspected of mistreating prisoners a pass, but most importantly of all the President gave all the Wall Street crooks a pass.  The President claimed to have done prosecutions in the banking area but almost universally I’ve heard that none of the big people went to jail.  There was a 6.2 earthquake in Alaska near Anchorage yesterday that shook a political headquarters. 

Let’s talk about police relations and incidents a little.  The Ferguson police chief stated that the body was left out on the street for hours “because we wanted to make sure all of the paper work was in order”.  But no ambulance was ever called and no witnesses were even questioned.  Now we have a case where an officer stops a man for failure to fasten his seat belt, and the guy gets out of the car when ordered to by the officer.  The officer asks for ID and he says “The wallet is in my car” and turns to get it and on the video the officer screams something unintelligible at him and then fires his gun - - four times a split second later.  The man survived and will live to tell his side.  Meanwhile that Highway Patrol incident of a Black woman being beaten with nine blows - - was settled out of court for a million dollars.  The officer did not admit any guilt and is permitted to resign with full pension.  Then there is the case in Ohio of this guy in a Wall Mart picking up a toy gun in the store and being killed by an officer.  They just announced that this man will not be charged.  Those seem the rules of the game.  I’d like the chance to ask any officer, “Why don’t you wait till you actually SEE the gun before you start shooting in these cases”.   I may be told “It’s officer safety”.  Then I’d make a simple comment to the officer or group “You people don’t place a very high value on human, life, do you”.

Now they are saying that the United States has dropped more bombs on ISIS in Iraq and Syria in the past two days since the latest campaign- - than in the foregoing six weeks combined, or whatever.  I was unable to find President Obama’s UN address on terror on You Tube, or on C-Span.   It does seem that Sean Hannity is wrong, though.  He said “bombing is useless unless you can get boots on the ground to secure and consolidate the territory”.  But in reality we have accomplished quite a bit in the past few days.  We have wiped out their refineries and oil fields so they don’t have that source of revenue they were relying on.  In short they have been “degraded”.  Now people in the FBI  say they have identified the British guy who did the first three beheadings by the desert landmarks and eyes and hands.  They even attempted a face composite.  I feel like a complete idiot even attempting blog posts these days as though people read them.   Britain has just voted to go to war against ISIS.  Meanwhile the United States will still have ten thousand troops remaining Afghanistan, according to Norman Goldman.

Wisconsin has successfully taken 300,300 people off the voter ID rolls.  But it just isn’t photo ID that’s the problem.  There is some “Wisconsin militia” unofficially enforcing these voter restrictions. Who are they?  First of all it’s no secret that these people have admitted that they are doing all these measures to keep progressive voting down.  But they do so many other things.  They limit the dept of motor vehicles to three days a week and cut back the hours.  Or they will farm out the production of the licenses to “California” to insure that it takes a maximum amount of time to arrive in the mail, perhaps when it’s too late to register.  People in North and South Dakota and Wyoming and have a problem with “registration” and even do it the same day.  But they don’t have a “liberal problem” in these states.  They change the precincts to make them cover a lot more people in the poorer communities.  They make it hard for the elderly or the blind or people in wheel chairs to get transportation.    Illegal aliens would not try to vote illegally because they’d make themselves an instant target for investigation.  In fact individual voter qualification fraud is and has been almost nonexistent.   Justice Reinquist used to stand in polling stations in high concentration Latino areas just to scare away voters in line.  But when one time in Ohio three black people from “the new Black panther” party with Billy-clubs stood to protect voting of Blacks - - this was a major intimidation and FOX news has gone on and on about “The new Black panther party” ever since.  They redraw congressional district lines to get two liberal democrats or minority house members running against each other in the same district now.   Try as I might – I can’t even pretend to think like a tea party person.

Mike Papentonio had a lot of stuff on Californian Proposition 46.  First of all nobody wants there to be more malpractice suits.  We would like to see much fewer of them.  But to do that we need to get rid of the bad doctors.  So we need to drug test these doctors.  And we also need a drug database coordinated with law enforcement where all parties can check to see how many of these “drug pushing doctors” are in opporation that will write a prescription for anything at the drop of a hat.  I guess California is getting as bad as Florida, which is the undisputed capital of the “pill doctors”.   But just as significantly- - all plantiffs are asking for is to have the dollar limit of their malpractice suits have the dollar buying power that they had in 1978 when the award limiting cap law was put in place.  Is that so awful.  So the question is asked “Why pays?”  It SHOULD be the doctor.  Why should WE give up OUR rights to our day in court and attorneys won’t even take cases if the bottom line isn’t high enough - - why should innocent patients be put at risk to subsidize- - - malpractice insurance?   I don’t even know why they should even INSURE a doctor who keeps having these cases.  Ordenary people are denied insurance if the risk is too high - - like living in a hurricane zone.  These doctors themselves are responsible for their torts.  They are the one whose responsibility it is to pay up – not us.  I don’t see why they just don’t revoke the medical licenses of repeat offender doctors.   Of course when they don’t run a single add FOR proposition 46 the debate tends to be a little lopsided.

 I had Sean Hannity on till eight to three and he was going on about how many jobs there were in Pennsylvania - - with fracking natural gas, but they don’t allow it in New York “which is languishing”.   Now they are saying if you’re willing to relocate you’ll be paid top dollar of forty or fifty thousand dollars.  Maybe I’m a little rusty in my math but the last time Hannity said you could earn a starting salary of eighty thousand straight out of high school.

These days it’s the Jihad dating game because “ISIS Wants Women” and you too can marry a terrorist.  Seriously!  “Where do you see yourself in five years?”  “Dead”.   “Good answer”.   Now there is a lengthly letter from Islamic clerics quoting from the Koran saying that “To take an innocent life is to murder the entire race”, or something.  I set a record yesterday for fewness of cigarettes I’m pretty sure.  From eleven o clock on I had only two cigarettes the entire rest of the day.  I did get a long butt from Gary at seven and I had one from somebody just after dinner and got white one from Richard more just after seven- - and was so happy to have received it I saved it till ten to eight during Wheel of Fortune.  I had it as my abiding goal not to use my debit card till this morning when among other things I could get fresh brewed coffee with it at the store.   After this it was the “Vampire Diaries” and “The Originals” but the plots of these two shows have a way of becoming almost cartoonish - - with a lot of fire and fury.

 Apparently the owner of the Clippers is banishing apple products with their phones that bend- - for “Surface” by Microsoft.  The Federation has been very quiet about its opinion of Bill Gates and Microsoft- - only that - - the Federation is not instrumental in Seatle’s left wing politics or fifteen dollar minimum wages.  On the other hand of course - - if you are talking about Nevada, all but Idaho and a lot of Utah, well we’re right there.  You can’t therefore necessarily conclude that “troops on the ground” translates to politics.  Just so you know – when the Federation  refers to “909’ers” they refer to the San Gabriel Valley up to but not including El Monte- - and the whole western part of San Barnadino county for places like Ontario, Fontana and Cucamonga.   The 909ers also consist of Reigel VI and the Detroit Romulans, too and the common denominator is Auto Racing and places like the Rout 66 conclave.